With the popularization of mobile terminals such as smartphones and tablet computers, an increasing number of users use mobile terminals to watch videos, for example, online videos or local videos. Therefore, how to optimize playing of a video on a mobile terminal has become a technical point focused by skilled persons.
To watch a video on a mobile terminal, a user needs to first install a video playing application in the mobile terminal. The video playing application usually has a function of playing online videos and local videos. Specifically, the video playing application may be a video application client, a browser of a video playing component, or the like. A video playing application may show online videos by means of search or recommendation, so that a user selects an online video that the user is interested in. In addition, a video playing application may also show local videos by searching a local database of a mobile terminal, so that a user selects a local video that the user is interested in. After the user selects the video that the user is interested in, the video playing application uses an internal video playing engine to play the video, and provides a video playing application interface to display the video selected by the user, so as to play the video on the mobile terminal. The video playing application interface is an area that is on a video playing interface and that is used to display the video that needs to be played. The video playing interface further includes a video playing control interface. The video playing control interface is mainly used to set controls such as an icon for controlling video playing.
In the existing technology, most mobile terminals support running an application on only a single screen, and cannot run multiple applications on a same screen like a personal computer (PC). Therefore, when a mobile terminal plays a video, if a user needs to perform an operation such as chatting with a friend or receiving/sending an email, a current interface of the mobile terminal is switched to a non-video playing application interface, and the mobile terminal cannot continue playing the video.
However, a user usually requires to play a video on the non-video playing application interface, to watch the video while performing another operation such as chatting with a friend or receiving/sending an email on the non-video playing application interface. It can be seen that, to meet such requirement of the user, how to play a video on a non-video playing application interface on a mobile terminal becomes a problem that needs to be considered by persons skilled in the art.